Robert Barone
Robert Barone is a police officer with the NYPD and brother of Ray in Everybody Loves Raymond. He is played by comedian/actor Brad Garrett. Robert lives with his parents, Frank and Marie, (and later his wife Amy) directly across the street from his brother, Ray. Robert is very jealous of Ray because Ray is favored by their mother, Marie. For his entire life, he claims to have lived in Ray's shadow, events which possibly lead to his adoption of a somewhat cruel sense of humor, to try and exact a form of belated, if childish, revenge. He is also known to be very passive-aggressive. Despite his jealousy of his younger brother, he is still shown to love and care deeply about him, even defending him against a DJ named Jerry Musso, who deliberately insults Ray for being untalented and stupid in "Somebody Hates Raymond". Robert displays several quirks, and generally unusual habits throughout the series, which include touching food to his chin before eating it ("crazy chin"), facing his toothbrush east, separating the "goods" from the "plenty" (the candy Good & Plenty), keeping his left socks in his left drawer and his right socks in his right drawer, eating his foods in alphabetical order, isolating nuts into a peanut group, an almond group, and a cashew group, shouting at pickles, braying voluminously at funerals, sleeping with a tennis racket under his bed as a "ghost swatter", and separating his M&Ms, among other things. Robert is the first character in the entire series to say the line "Everybody loves Raymond" in the very first episode, "Pilot". Also, his unusual height was a running joke through the series, (he stands at 6' 8½"), He also had a fear of his childhood shoe tree when he was a kid, and thought it was a monkey with an axe hiding in his closet. Like Raymond, he lives in abject fear of his mother and is often unable to take any kind of stand against her. He is, however, occasionally shown to be slightly more assertive where Marie is concerned, once even going into a rage when Marie intentionally meddles with his interview with the FBI in the episode "Lucky Suit." Personality Bitter, envious and cynical, the only way to describe him, Robert never-endlessly complains about how his life has turned out. He obviously suffers from an inferiority complex as he lives with the profound belief that Marie favoured his little brother Raymond over him. Although he cares for his brother and mother, he also silently resents them for loving one another more than they loved him all his life. And he is also known as rational, optimistic, bold, even-tempered, righteous, trusting, benevolent, altruistic, respectful, obstinate, nice, empathetic. The foundation of Raymond's favouritism from Marie stands out that he was a "needy baby" to begin with while Robert was more independent and was capable of surviving on his own. However it's obvious that their relationship was that of a constant neglect, examples prove of this when he was left in a gas station for three hours during a road trip and when he discovered that Frank and Marie changed his birthday so it would appear that they consummated their marriage after they wedded. Although he sees himself as better than his pampered brother, he can be equally as bad with his pining for attention in his life of neglect, he also constantly roots the problems of his life to Raymond, seeing him as selfish, glory-hogging and undeserving of the life he has. Robert has developed an extremely vicious sense of humour, he laughs with delight whenever Raymond's life goes astray or he's annoyed however he is not as witty as his brother and whenever he is teased by the latter he is without a comeback. Another similarity is that both Barone siblings are completely under the thumb of their over-dominating mother, Marie. He will go to tremendous lengths to impress or appease her, even lying to her when Marie had walked in on Robert and Amg having sex by saying that they were getting married (as Marie was an old fashioned woman). However Amy notes that when she brought up commitment when they were dating it caused them to break up before noting that Marie's hold on him was "sick." Robert does occasionally display remarkable assertiveness and courage but this is normally whenever he is on duty as a police officer. An example of this was during a mugging at Nero's Pizza and he was able to arrest and overpower the thug, something which greatly impressed Raymond as he had never seen his brother in action before. Another time was when he and his partner Judy attempted to break up an illegal bullfighting ring, and a bull escaped then aimed for his partner, Robert attracted its attention and ran it down resulting in him being gored by the animal. He is obviously terrified of Marie and never takes a stand against her, a rare example of Robert's confidence was when he chastised her for sabotaging his interview at FBI, claiming all she wants is to keep her family exactly how she wants it. His racial views are not entirely explored however he did grow up with two old-fashioned, and slightly bigoted parents so that may have affected him. When trying to fit in with Judy's friends he begins behaving as he thought a stereotypical black person would, using phrases such as "dope" or "whack" consistently which was pointed out by Raymond as they were Italian. His sexuality was a joke amongst his family, his effeminate nature and naive views of what a marriage should be like caused both Frank and Raymond to call him a "girl". During a ping ping game, Raymond jestsd hat "you experimented at camp" which causes him to leave but defending that "those were rumours". He also lied to Marco, his ex-girlfriend, Stefania's terrifying father that he was homosexual after they moved to New York and he broke up with her later on. Robert's self-confidence seems to deride on how other perceives him. He takes the opinion of his sister-in-law, Debra very seriously as he sees her as the only normal "Barone" and was hurt when he discovered that she and Raymond were talking about his "crazy chin" behind his back. Robert, similar to Frank was aware that she was an attractive woman, he even described her as "perfect" after Marie invited all his former girlfriends to her house to fix him and had a distinct memory of what she wore at Thanksgiving but was clueless when his wife asked him what she wore. On one occasion he was stuck when trying to decide whether to stay an alarm salesman for the rest of his career or return to being a police officer, asking the opinions of his family rather than deciding himself, indicating that he is pathologicaly afraid of disappointing people a trair which he may have picked up during a lifetime living with Marie. Robert is a very quirky individual, an obvious one would be his "crazy chin" his tendency to rub his food against his chin whenever he was eating. It's revelaled that this began as a pathological way to attract Marie's attention but it actually became a reaction to stress. Whenever he doesn't do this it causes a reaction in his leg, making him kick. Another example is how he always faces his toothbrush east, seperating the "goods" and "plenty" from the candy Goods & Plenty, keeping his left sock in his left drawer and his right socks in his right drawer, eating his food in alphabetical order, dividing assorted nuts into peanut, cashew and almond categories, screaming at pickles, braying volminously at funerals, sleeping with a tennis racket in his bed as a "ghost swatter" and separating M&M's to eat. Robert occasionally proves to be a very good brother at times. When Raymond was insulted by a DJ Jerry Musso, he defends his brother and holds him in a high regard in comparison to Musso. He also had a breakdown after Raymond was having his tonsils removed and there was difficulty waking him up form anaesthesia, though he later waked up Robert actually cried when they played "You Are My Sunshine" on the radio. Trivia * Although on the show Robert is supposed to be four years older than younger brother, Raymond. In reality, Ray Romano is two years older than Brad Garrett. Also Ray's real brother is actually much shorter than Ray, unlike his brother on the show. Category:Provoker Category:Siblings Category:Gentle Giants Category:Envious Category:Tragic Category:Officials Category:Heroic Karma Houdini Category:Nurturer Category:TV Show Heroes Category:Sitcom Heroes Category:Male Category:Live Action Heroes Category:Heroic Jerks Category:Wrathful Category:Unwanted Category:Lawful Neutral Category:Obsessed Category:Martyr Category:Anti Hero Category:Antagonists Category:On & Off Category:Egomaniacs Category:Paranoid Category:Heroic Disciplinarians Category:Related to Villain Category:Pessimists